1. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS

1.1 The co-chairs welcomed members. Apologies were received from John Cairncross.

2. TERMS OF REFERENCE

2.1 The draft Terms of Reference were reviewed. The co-chairs outlined that their vision for the Forum is to be open and consultative in order to identify areas for improvement and to find solutions.

2.2 The Forum agreed that it would meet monthly, with a review of frequency after three months.

3. NDIP GOVERNANCE AND PLAN

3.1 The Forum discussed groups established under the NDIP governance.

3.2 The NDIP action plan was shared with the group and discussed. The plan is a collation of recommendations from MMCPSI and Mouncher. It identified five key themes, based on the recommendations, ownership of which was with CPS police and College of Policing.

4. EMERGING PROCESSES – the Disclosure Management Document

4.1 The draft Disclosure Management Document was presented to the Forum for comment. They recommended that an additional bullet point was added to deal with lines of enquiry arising from admissions by the suspect in interview and to ensure that these were followed up by investigators.

4.2 The Forum discussed whether and how a streamlined version of the DMD could be used in the Magistrates’ Courts. In relation to electronic material, there was discussion about the importance of police being proactive in seeking evidence from social media. There was agreement that Police and defence would both benefit from early engagement pre-charge, which at present does not happen.

4.3 Retrieving Third Party Material was known to be difficult. Different local authorities gave differing amounts of cooperation. It was agreed that further work would be done to investigate how this might be standardised and improved.

5. AOB

5.1 The Forum agreed to meet in one month’s time and that future meeting would continue to be held in London.